


To Carry You Home

by MythopoeticReality



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 08:16:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14052768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MythopoeticReality/pseuds/MythopoeticReality
Summary: That stanza always struck him. It felt more like Makalaurë were saying it for himself than for any of them. And that they might find any rest in a return to home, under Mandos’s judgement…He could have laughed, if he’d felt up to it. But perhaps it was the only comfort Makalaurë could offer though. An image from a memory, thoughts of what used to be and a return to it...





	To Carry You Home

He awoke to the sound of his brother’s voice, the feeling of his arms wrapping around him, lifting him from the ground. How...where…? He could make out Makalaurë’s voice, but his words...his _words…_

His limbs felt so heavy, his mind...he couldn’t…if he could just hold onto a thought…

“K-kano?” Ambarussa’s throat cracked upon the name. He winced, trying to swallow down the pain, but it  only grew the worse, spreading. Everything _hurt_ , every heartbeat, every breath. His chest felt like...as though a sword…

Oh...oh...he remembered now.

The battle before, the flash of sword blades and the sunlight off of armour. The taste of blood thick on the air. ( _Still in his mouth now, like salt and iron…)_ He had seen...he had seen Amrod fall, had run over to him, and then….and then…

The fighting must have ended now. It was so quiet...

_“K-kano!”_ Ambarussa tried again, struggling to raise his voice loud enough to be heard. He saw Makalaurë move, but his vision was so dark, his brother’s vissage so shadowed and blurred.

“Hush, hush Ambarussa…” Makalaurë murmured. Amras felt his fingers drift gently over his face. “Hush now. Sleep…” Something wet fell onto his face then. Rain? No...no too warm. And he...no, the ground...no... _Makalaurë_ shook, as though he were....

Oh. He was weeping. He was weeping, which meant--

_“Why do you weep?_  
_What are these tears upon your face?_  
_Soon you will see_  
_All of your fears will pass away…”_

Yes, Ambarussa remembered this song. From when Tyelco, and Curvo...Carnistir…

He was dying, wasn’t he?

That stanza always struck him. It felt more like Makalaurë were saying it for himself than for any of them. And that they might find any rest in a return to home, under Mandos’s judgement…

He could have laughed, if he’d felt up to it. But perhaps it was the only comfort Makalaurë could offer though. An image from a memory, thoughts of what used to be and a return to it, rather than…

Rather than…

_“To the everlasting Darkness doom us if our deed faileth…”_

Something, something like a bowstring snapping after being pulled too far back shot through Ambarussa in that moment. That was his fate. It was..it was all of their fates, and they had sworn themselves to it anyway. A sudden cold overtook Ambarussa. The isolation that would constantly haunt his nightmares, this was…

“Kano, K-Kano, I don’t...don’t want…”

“Shhh, Ambarussa…”  came Makalaurë’s voice again. “Don’t say...d-don’t say…” His voice began to waver, to crack, but he quickly shook himself.

“ _Don't say_  
_We have come now to the end_  
_White shores are calling_  
_You and I will meet again_  
_And you'll be here in my arms_ _  
Just sleeping…”_

He clung to his brother, with the last failing strength of his body, his fingers clung to Makalaurë’s arms. They felt like stone. Beneath hard muscle and armor there was no give. But Makalaurë held him closer, as he had when he was once a child…

Ambarussa’s breath was rasping now. He felt his eyes shutting, despite himself.

_“You and I will meet again.”_ Those words...they were almost, almost a comfort... he would see his family again. He would be reunited with his family. With Curvo and Tyelco and Carnistir. With Atar. With...with his twin...

If they were to face the darkness, they would do so together, at least.

* * *

“Goodbye Kano…” Ambarussa’s last words were like a breath on the wind.There in the silence, on the desolate battleground, Makalaurë heard them, just whispered over the hiss of the tide going out. Behind him, he could hear Maitimo approaching, to say it was time to move on, that they must go. But Makalaurë ignored it. He cung all the tighter to his youngest brother,  “You bastard…” he managed, between the sobbs that raked his shoulders, “You bastard, you brought us out here, you cannot…” He buried his face in his brother’s hair as he struggled to control his breathing again.

He felt Maitimo’s hand on his shoulder. “Makalaurë…” His eldest brother’s voice was as gentle as he’d heard it in a long time. Makalaurë glanced up and then nodded.

“A safe journey, my brother…” Makalaurë murmured, before slowly, pulling away, an allowing the men to gather the corpse.

 


End file.
